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Special back-to-school issue:

As the deadline approaches for the province to settle outstanding contract issues with unionized teachers, parents prepare for the possibility of strike action. Education faculty assistant dean Peter Grimmett can speak to the labour issues, while education professors Kieran Egan and Meguido Zola can suggest ways parents can help their children learn outside the traditional classroom setting if need be.

For many people, September seems as much an opportunity to make a fresh start as New Year's Day. Business professor Mila Lazarova studies work-life balance, and can offer helpful suggestions on how working parents in particular can get a better handle on juggling the conflicting demands of kids, bosses, teachers, parent advisory committees, soccer coaches, and neglected spouses.

Field trips have changed a lot from the days when kids trailed passively after a museum guide with a sheet of fill-in-the-blank questions in their hands. Or have they? What's the key difference between a fantastic field trip and one that's an utter flop? And is a field trip, just by virtue of being “fun”, necessarily a successful field trip from a learning perspective? Lora Hargreaves, who recently wrote her master of education thesis on the subject, can offer fresh insights on this perennial school activity.

Education assistant professor Peter Liljedahl's doctoral study of the Aha! factor in mathematics - that pivotal moment when something mathematical makes sense - led him to glean the insights of the world's top mathematicians. Now it has opened new research paths, including a study of the life-long development of math teachers, as he puts it, what shapes math teachers into 'great' math teachers.